fired with a single idea, the consciousness of his own agility and
strength.

"By this means he, alone of the three, was able to cross the gulf in
which his two companions had perished."

Effrontery and boastfulness have often another source. The shyness of
those who suffer from timidity, by isolating them and denying them the
means of expansion, prevents them from obtaining a real control over
their feelings, which undergo a process of deterioration so slow that
they do not notice it.

There are very few things to which we can not easily become accustomed,
to the extent of a complete failure to notice their peculiarities, if
their strangeness is only unfolded to us gradually.

A thousand things which shock us at the first blush take on the guise of
every-day matters when once we have acquired the habit of familiarity
with them.

The timid man, who will not openly acknowledge his feelings, is
practically unable to take cognizance of their gradual transformation.

We may add that he is always prone to dream, and peoples his world
involuntarily with imaginary utopias, which he begins by considering as
desirable, then as possible, and finally as actually existing.

This is the starting-point of boastfulness. It partakes at once of
falsity and of sincerity. The timid man loves to feel himself important,
and he merely pities the people whom he considers incapable of